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England to learn from Aussie decline

Julian Drape

England expects to continue its medal success at the Rio Olympics and Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and will use the example of Australia's decline post-Sydney in 2000 to push for funding to be maintained.

England in Glasgow has replaced Australia at the top of the Commonwealth Games medal table for the first time since 1986.

Its capitalised on the huge funding given to British sport courtesy of the UK Lottery while Australian sporting funding has suffered since 2000.

England team chairman Sir Andrew Foster on Sunday said "of course" it was pleasing to beat Australia into top spot.

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"(But) it's quite clear that Australian funding seems to have reduced and some of the drive that was there doesn't seem quite as strong as it was post-Sydney," he told AAP.

"What we need to watch is, we had an absolute focus in London, we've definitely got an Olympic bounce now, and we have to sustain it.

"There are always ebbs and flows and at the moment it feels like we are on a positive wave."

The chairman said England was "very proud" to top the table for the first time in 28 years and the success would further fuel public support for Great Britain heading into Rio.

"Yes there is a bounce, and there is the cash, and this (Glasgow success) has then fed into that very positively."

Foster praised the "wonderful historic rivalry" with Australia saying England knew if it was to become best in class it had to challenge Aussie performances.

He said Australia was still "the absolute premier league" when it came to swimming but England was improving in the pool and had a better spread of medals across all sports.

"In a sense that's how we've been able to challenge Australia," he said.

England's chef de mission Jan Paterson on Sunday said topping the medal table was unique for her team.

"Our aspiration of reversing the slide in Delhi on the medal table to where we are now, well, we haven't just reversed it, we've smashed it, and it's a great feeling," she told reporters.

Paterson said the average age of England's medallists was just 24 so the future was looking bright too.

The chef de mission wasn't about to gloat beating the Aussies, however.

Instead she simply stated: "There were 71 countries we were competing against."